yes, it’s official… i am a wealthy novelist!

got a statement in the post yesterday, informing me that the PLR (public lending rights) people have just given me a sum of money. Every time someone takes one of my books out of the library, i get a (teeny) sum of money. they add them all up during the year and then treat you with it!

£4:25.

yeah, baby!!!

never let it be said that i’m not fully contributing to the family finances. hubbie’s got stiff competition now… might have to start working longer hours to keep up with me!

So, here is my evening…

Thrilled at having the house to myself for an hour or 2 after work, i look forward to chilling out. I decide to quickly finish the flyer I am working on to give to my kids’ Church Fri Club… and THEN it ends up taking me an hour and a 1/2 (DTP is not my thing).

So I get the flyers to club and go for a drink with my m8 sarah… and THEN when we’re walking back up thru town, on our way to collect kids from aforementioned Friday club, we pass some drunk people who accuse us of being sluts (or slags, i forget which) and they were a bit scary and started to follow us so we picked up our pace and lost them (the influence of alcohol slowed them down methinks!). And it was only 8pm!

So we get home, Mark is out at a meeting… and THEN i realise i don’t have key to the house so we are locked out.
and THEN i realise i don’t have my phone as i hadn’t brought it as not charged.
and so T says we’ll ring Dad on her phone… and THEN she realises it’s dropped out of her pocket (only got it at xmas, worth about £40)
so we decide to go to our friends L&R down the road as they have a spare key… and THEN on arrival we remember they’ve gone away for the wknd.
so we go to other friends nearby, T&J, and use their phone to ring mark… and THEN find he’s switched it off as in a meeting.
so phone the house where mtg is… and THEN realise he can’t come and give us key as i have the car.
so i drive, with kids, to the house where he is to collect key… and THEN i take what i think is a road that will take us back through the town to get home, but soon find ourselves in v narrow country road, heading away from the town… and i NEVER go on narrow country lanes… i am v allergic!

so managed to follow the lights and get back to town, find T’s phone in the car, get into house… and all is well.

Mind you, it’s only 9:55pm… who knows what else this eve might have in store for me…?!!

PS… Mark just got home and is making me add that it was my fault that i didn’t know where my phone charger was, and he also would like to point out that he was chairing the mtg i dragged him out of!

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM SOMERSET WHEN:

… you’ve bought stationery in Bastins
….you think Bath’s a big city
… you can tell sheep from goats
… you know why to avoid Bridgwater
… you think Bristol is ‘up north’
… venturing outside of the 30 limit is just unnecessary
… chinese takeaways that deliver, what are they?
… the smell of cow sh*t makes you feel at home
… everywhere else in the UK feels cold
… you have a friend who lives on a farm
… you live on a farm
… you learnt to drive in a field or on a beach
… you live in a cottage
… your home has a thatched roof
… you think nothing of paying £20 for a 2 mile taxi journey
… you’ve been stuck behind a stupid tourist on a country lane
… you saw the total eclipse in ‘99
… your local newspaper’s is ‘cow falls off bridge’
… you turned to drink, drugs or heavy metal at an early age
… your friends say you sound like a farmer
… you have nothing to do after 5:30pm
… you think pink wellies are a fashion statement
… you know how to walk over a cattle grid
… you’ve been pony trekking
… ’short and choppy on the North coast’ makes total sense to you
… you think nothing of grass growing in the middle of the road
… everyone you meet has been to Butlins in Minehead on holiday
… despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you think a young farmers’disco is a wild night out
… until you went on holiday, the tallest building you had ever seen
was Debenhams in Taunton
… you’ve reversed for 3 miles when you met a stubborn tourist on a
country lane
… it takes you 4 times longer to drive anywhere between May and
September
….you pack a thermos, shovel and blanket in the car because the HTV top
story was snow forecast in Bristol
… you’re a closet fan of The Wurzels
… your second cousin is also your sister’s stepmother
… your neighbours’ average age is 76
… your best friend goes joyriding in tractors
… you can’t stand the grockles, despite living off their money
… you thought it was normal for more than 50% of your high street’s
shops to be operated by charities
….Biggest story on the local TV news is a cat locked in a shed for 2 days
in Yeovil
….Second biggest story, man fell off his bike in Glastonbury

my comment on this… as you can see, being from somerset means i can tell sheep from goats… essential for all christians… thus, all christians ought to move here, asap!

if you look at my ‘rosebush questions’ post below, and then at ‘more rosebush questions’ you’ll see that the issue of ’sunday’ was brought up, and also tithing. J McIntyre took up my challenge of finding verses in the NT that back up the idea of ‘keeping sunday special’ as christians today. Here is the list he/she (sorry, don’t know!) came up with:

1] Mark 1:21 When the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue

2] Mark 2:27 “The Sabbath was made for man,

3] Mark 6:2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue

4] Matt 12:12 it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. [which must therefore exist]

5] Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene… [i.e.not until]

6] Luke 4:16
on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.

7] Luke 4:31 on the Sabbath began to teach the people.

8] Luke 6:5 “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” [which must therefore exist]

9] Luke 13:10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues,

10] Luke 13:16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

11] Luke 23:56-24:1
But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

12] Acts 18:4 Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue,

13] Matt 5:19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practises and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

14] Acts 20:7
On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people

15] 1 Cor 16:2
2On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income,

16] Matt 23:23
You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former.

17] Heb 7:2
Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means “king of righteousness” [Abraham lived before the Law]

18]Heb 7:8
8In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living.

Here are my comments:

1,3,5,6, 7,9, 11, 12 and 14 all show Jesus and people around him being jewish. We know that jesus’ friends would also sacrifice animals in the synagogue at this time, and we accept that as it was part of their religion… but we don’t do it today as we know jesus was the final sacrifice.
nowhere does jesus say that those who want to follow him must rest/not shop, etc, on the sabbath, or on sunday.
it would make sense for jesus to teach in the synagogue on the sabbath as that was the traditional time and place for teaching to happen. what is interesting is that he ALSO taught on other days of the week, in other venues… showing that he didn’t feel tied to teaching only on the sabbath.

2,4,8 and 10 … glad you mentioned these… these are the strongest argument that jesus was really fed up with the pharisees 508 (or whatever it was) list of things you weren’t allowed to do on a sunday. Jesus heals someone, and picks corn in a field with his disciples on the sabbath. he does these things deliberately, and makes a thing of it. these verses don’t say that jesus says we should always meet on a sunday, that it’s a holy day and that we shouldn’t work on a sunday, etc. perhaps they say the opposite.

14… yes, this shows the early christians meeting on a sunday, but in other places it says they met ‘daily’.

15… this doesn’t mention a tenth though, just some money.

17 and 18… yes, abraham tithed. he also sacrificed animals to God, which, back then, was the right thing to do. as it says later in that very bit of the chapter: the people were given the law based on a system of priests… but they could not be made perfect through that system, so there was a need for another priest to come… and when a different kind of priest comes, the law must be changed too.
these cannot be taken out of context… the whole of chap 7 and 8 are about how jesus is our high priest.

i find this article on tithing very good.

the NT has a strong emphasis on giving… to those in the church who are in need first, and then to the poor. all we have is God’s not just 10%.

i know that jews (and catholics) are keen on their holy days and places, and i am happy for them to be so. but the way i see it, if we are christians, born out of the reformation, we know that there are no holy days, places or people. God is abiding in us,fullstop.

if chrisitians today feel the bible is telling them to keep sunday special, or to tithe, that’s fine. i accept that we can both translate the bible in slightly different ways. What i worry about is the church teaching that sundays and tithing are the ONLY way to be a christian. this is legalist and dangerous, imho.

i’m still happy to discuss either topic tho, as i find it interesting, and it’s all part of discovering how we should ‘be church’ in post-christendom today.